Pregnancy, birth, labor, and postpartum support for women and their families

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Trusting Birth?

"I am having a home birth with just my husband. I am so excited to have it just the people there when the baby was conceived. I trust birth."

The swirling juices in my stomach threatened to overflow into my mouth as I overheard this statement. I struggled to keep my knees steady, even as the room swirled around me. "It is not my business. It is not my circus, not my monkeys." I reminded myself as I maintained my composure and sought to keep smiling.

Why such a strong response to a simple statement?

Home is a peaceful place to give birth.

I personally love home birth. It can be one of the safest places to give birth with a trained care provider.

It can also be the cause of PTSD, which is what the statement above triggered for me.

Why?

I had two unassisted home births. As I stated, I love home birth. I was naive and frankly to be honest, stubborn in my ideal that it was normal to give birth. Why did I need anyone else to help me?

I have observed, as a doula many births now. I know that not all unassisted births will have trauma related to them. But the statement "I trust birth." can make a mom that has experienced trauma feel like a lesser person. "Birth" this entity has somehow forsaken her and let her down.

Our bodies were created to give birth. However, in this world, there are many variables that can cause a birth to not go according to plan. A baby may somehow not be in the optimal position. Nutritional intake may not be ideal. Small things which are often discussed at prenatal appointments will often be missed when a woman participates in "Freebirthing", "Unassisted Birthing" or "Unattended Birthing".

This is where a midwife can come in.

A midwife should not be a last resort, or looked at as an unnecessary expense.

While often I have heard the complaint when they just go in and do the same thing every prenatal appointment and they never have any red flags. "Why should I bother? Can't I skip one or two? Is this really needed?" If you have nothing they are catching, that is a good thing. It is often because you are doing regular prenatal care that you are doing okay. The small tips the midwife or OB gives you, those prevent problems if you listen to them.

I figured that since I was educated, I could do my own prenatal care. I took my blood pressure, checked my urine, measured my uterus. I couldn't listen to the heart beat, but if I had had the equipment, I would have done that as well. The problem was, I missed some major components of the whole idea behind having a trained care provider. I was well educated, but I missed what extent my hyperemesis had on my long term health. My lack of nutrition was apparent in my complications postpartum and in my babies. After my second son, at five months of age, I broke my foot. The bone refused to heal from the high demands I had put on my body. When I gave birth, my skin was fragile and shredded was a nice term as to what happened to my perineum. It was linked to the lack of nutrition and prenatal care.

You would think some of those things were common sense, but when you are pregnant, your mind is elsewhere. I struggled, in spite of all my learning and knowledge to follow what I knew was right.

I never want to swallow bile because I am relieving my birth experience again at the words of another.

I share this story with you as privacy was important to me. I longed to be alone while giving birth. However, I learned that a great, trained care provider can give you that same atmosphere, while at the same time helping provide a protection if an emergency occurs.

No one should have to live with the aftermath that I did.

Be wise in your choices. Listen to the experiences of others to protect yourself.

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